Something about this was bothering me. The hundred percent thing. No group had a hundred percent who all wanted to do the same thing, ever. Sure, less advanced cultures might have more people willing to listen to the leader or high priest or whomever, but even then, there were always rebels. Even the A-Cs had rebels, few and far between though they were. I was married to one, after all.
My music changed to “Another State of Mind” by Social Distortion and it dawned on me. “Someone’s controlling them. It would make sense. Whoever is in the sun wants all that he or she can get. Keep the people, get more of their essences or whatever it is the Superiors want or need to survive.”
“The Superiors?” Kreaving shook his head. “Their star exploded hundreds of years ago.”
“Oh, well, as to that . . . have we got a story for you.”
Jeff nodded. “We do. Let’s tell it inside the Distant Voyager.”
CHAPTER 78
WE GOT THE CREW of the Eknara on board. They were traveling with fewer people than we were—who wasn’t?—but they still had twenty-five, all crew or scientific personnel. We also had the intact shuttle moved into our cargo hold, just in case, as well as anything salvageable from the remains of the Eknara, their scientific and surveying equipment in particular. Having A-Cs along, Christopher especially, meant this went quickly.
The Eknara had a ship’s doctor, but Tito did medical examinations on all of them in our medical bay just in case. Possibly also because he was thrilled to finally get to actually do the job he loved. Everyone pronounced healthy though slightly dehydrated, we got them all water, then did tight quarters assignments, just in case we could convince others to get on board, so they didn’t take up all that many rooms.
I’d broken down and turned off my music when we’d gotten on board, though I’d kept my earbuds in despite a couple of meaningful looks from Jeff. I was ready to turn the music back on the moment things got stressful, which I expected at any time.
We let our people out of the Nonessential Personnel Station, aka the jail, per Lizzie. Then we all went to the mess hall, so the Ignotforstans could have a meal and we could all talk comfortably. We ate, too, just to be sociable.
Because the Eknara was a science vessel, everyone on board was trained in astrophysics and all related subjects. Meaning they were having a great time talking to Brian, Chuckie, Drax, Mossy, Mother, all our Dazzlers on Board including those who identified as housewives, and Hacker International, while the rest of us smiled politely and shut our ears off. Or perhaps that was just me.
Happily, while the Ignotforstans had never heard of humans, A-Cs, or Turleens, they didn’t seem too thrown by any of us. They knew of the Vata, but the races had never met. They’d had no interaction with the Anciannas or Z’porrah. Found all of this interesting since I’d thought the Anciannas and Z’porrah had meddled everywhere in the galaxy, and that the Galactic Council had identified every ally or enemy possible. Clearly this wasn’t the case, since we’d only run into essentially “undiscovered” or forgotten systems on this trip.
The Eknara hadn’t been carrying any children, which was a huge disappointment to our kids. However, their ship’s doctor, Setah Momac, who resembled a taller chimp, and the ship’s navigator, Bremelos Merplon, who was representing orangutans, were enamored of children, so they were making up for the lack of new age-appropriate playmates by letting all the kids hang off of them and answering all of their questions, even the impertinent ones.
They were a couple, found out almost immediately via the first impertinent question, which came from my daughter. They were not yet married, which was the second impertinent question, which came from my ward. Truly, I was Mother of the Year.
Thankfully, had to switch tables to do the intelligence briefings, so I could stop contemplating my parenting failures for a bit. We spent some important time bringing Kreaving and his command crew up to date on what was going on, including that we’d been flung around the galaxy by the Powers That Be and, therefore, had no real idea of where we were going and so forth.
We also shared Modern Superior History and described what parasites did and why I thought that we had a parasite in the sun. After the requisite questioning of my methods, and the subsequent listing of all the times Megalomaniac Girl had been right, they stopped arguing. Save worlds, solar systems, and galaxies enough, and apparently some people can be convinced that you might be competent.
Grentix Wheekus, the Eknara’s science officer, who was on the gorilla side of the Ignotforsta house, had been on the shuttle team, and she described the people and the inhabited planets. The planets were similar—mostly rocky with water, animal, and plant life, but each one had a predominant color. The planet we were on was red, but the others were blue, green, saffron, orange, brown, and purple. Resisted making a Beta Eight comment, but it took effort.
We were dealing with races that were humanoid and similar to each other—no one had taken the time to do DNA samples because of the situation, but the natives on each planet looked like the natives on the other planets. Plant and animal life was similar, too. The only real difference the Eknara’s away team has seen between one world from the others was that all the living things on any particular world matched their world’s hue in terms of skin color and hair, and that included the plants and animals.
The natives looked a lot like we did, as in like humans. They were smaller than us by a lot, though—Tito and the flyboys, who were the shortest guys with us, were taller than any of the males they’d seen, and I would be an Amazon for the females. Well, a lot like us other than the color thing and one other key factor—their skin was flaky, but not as if it were dry because it didn’t fall off. Grentix described it as almost as if their skin was a form of feathers, or heading that way.
Population estimates were a good million plus per planet, and there were people scattered all over each planet, not all clumped together, which presented us with the disheartening truth that we had no normal means to save the majority of these populations.
But the real bottom line came all too soon. “We could take these people by force, but they don’t want to leave,” Kreaving said. “If we aren’t willing to force them, there’s nothing we can do other than desert them for our own safety, because none of us have anything that we can use to stop this sun’s fast descent into a black hole.”
My music turned on. “Evil Is Alive And Well” by Jakob Dylan. Really didn’t think Algar meant that Kreaving or his people were the evil ones. “Look, we can’t just run away. This won’t stop here. If whoever’s inside this sun succeeds—and, trust me, they will—then we are looking at a galaxy-ending event. The galaxy-ending event, really.”
“Someone that powerful could end the universe,” Chuckie added.